News

USA: First there was The Antiques Roadshow, now we have the Antiques Rivershow. That is the aim of a New Orleans antiques dealer who wants to take to the Mississippi on a decomissioned casino boat with the most unusual antiques fair yet devised.

UK: This Urbino majolica istoriato dish, depicting the cutting of Samson’s hair and attributed to Francesco Xanto Avelli di Rovigo, was discovered in a box of effects following a clearance at a Fenland farmhouse and entered for sale at Golding Young & Co. of Grantham on April 11.

Portable Writing Desks by David Harris

F&M notwithstanding, the latest West Country Sporting sale to be held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt, the Somerset saleroom on March 30 saw its best ever attendance.

Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, by Amin Jaffer

British Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas 1740-1914, by Nicholas A. Brawer

The second foray to Mayfair from their custom-built rooms near Bath fell short of an unqualified success for Gardiner Houlgate (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) but the March 18 specialist musical instruments sale at the Westbury Hotel, where some 380 lots took about £178,000, attracted enough top-level interest to put it on the map as a bi-annual event with a third planned for November.